


And 'round his heart one strangling golden hair.

by thecarlysutra



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Be Careful What You Wish For, Dark, Dubious Consent, F/M, Gifts, Mental Coercion, Mind Manipulation, Obsession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 07:08:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21070904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecarlysutra/pseuds/thecarlysutra
Summary: Wanda develops a crush.  Things get out of hand.For Hecate for Trick or Treat 2019.  Title from "Body's Beauty" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.





	And 'round his heart one strangling golden hair.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hecate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/gifts).

  
For half her life, Tony Stark has been Wanda’s biggest problem. He’s the big bad wolf, her would-be murderer, and the bullseye in the target of her life’s work. Everything Strucker did to her, all the experiments and the pain, watching the other subjects die all around her, she did because of Tony Stark.

He’s not at all like she expected.

They were on the transport back from Sokovia, bandaged but still shellshocked. Wanda sat curled up in a corner, feeling Pietro’s absence like missing a limb, and Tony, out of the suit, walked over to her. He knelt beside her, and handed her a steaming mug. She took it, eyeing him, and he didn’t look at her as she took a sip of what turned out to be tea with honey.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” he said. “I, uh—it’s not the same, but I was … I was a little younger than you when my parents died. I know it’s not the same. I’m just—all I wanted to say is that I’m here if you need someone.”

He could have knocked her over with a feather. 

She spends time training with Steve and Natasha, with Sam and Vis and Rhodey. They’re in New York when they’re not traveling, and Tony is back on the west coast, doing whatever it is he does when he’s not being Iron Man. Rhodey has a day job, too, but he visits Tony often. One time, he asks Wanda if she wants to come.

Tony sends a jet for them. He’s in the process of building a new house on the cliff; Rhodey says something about the old one getting blown up, and somehow Wanda isn’t surprised by this, but she thinks of the apartment building in Sokovia, the missile hitting it, the floor opening up. It’s strange to think of the same thing happening to Tony. She thinks about the many ways their lives run parallel: both of them forever changed by a missile with _Stark Industries_ printed on the side. It took things from them, yes, but it also made them what they are now.

The new house is mostly finished, and Tony’s made up a room for her. There are flowers in a slender vase on her bedside table, purple and yellow snapdragons. She looks at the way the petals twist and turn; it reminds her of the tendrils of energy she can summon, the way they move.

It’s after midnight, and Wanda can’t sleep. She sneaks into Rhodey’s head and finds him sleeping. He’s dreaming about flying, just him without the suit, like a bird. She peeks into Tony’s. He’s still awake, in the workshop downstairs, and he’s thinking about numbers and schematics. His mind is a whirlwind; equations and problems flying past, solved so quickly, the angles on the blueprints adjusting, changing as he thinks of this new feature or that. It reminds her of the origami fortune tellers she made as a child, giggling with the other girls in her class, before everything changed. Pick a color. Pick a number. You’ll fall in love with a great man, a strong man, a smart man. A man with a heart of gold.

Wanda walks through the halls of Tony’s house. Everything is so quiet at this time of night. She’s always liked it, the stillness. Outside, the waves whisper as they meet the shore. If she concentrates hard enough, she can hear stories from them, the Chinese freighter that they took along the Pacific drift, whale songs from the Arctic Ocean. 

She descends the stairs. Tony’s workshop is encased in glass walls, and she watches him for a moment, bent over his bench with his head low. He has a small, thin tool with a burning end in his hand, turning metal to liquid, the silver drips dropping exactly where he wants them. He has clever hands to go with his clever mind.

Pick a color. Pick a number.

Wanda watches him work from the other side of the glass. She does it without thinking, almost.

“Dream of me,” she says. “Love me.” 

The red tendrils curl around her fingers, and she sees Tony’s eyes flash red for a moment. He blinks and the color is gone, but he’s neglected the soldering iron, and silver drops cover the work bench. She urges them into a heart shape. Tony’s mind stills, everything slowing to a crawl, and in the center, Wanda. He puts the tool down, and he closes his eyes to hold onto it, the image of her wearing nothing but the small, curved petals of the snapdragons, hair loose, untamed, skin the color of milk and as soft as the flower petals under his hands. And he dreams of her under his hands. He pulls her into his arms, strong arms, clever hands, and he kisses her, and he falls in love.

When he opens his eyes, he looks for her, and he finds her outside the glass doors. He moves to her, a decisive stride, and he waves his hand and the glass doors part, and in a moment she is swept up in his arms. He is holding her to his chest, one hand sliding through her hair, and he is kissing her, insistently, desperately. He tastes like the soldering iron smells, like a liquid drop of silver, and he pulls her up against him, her feet off the floor. Wanda has not been kissed often, but he is kissing her well. She doesn’t have to urge him anymore; the seed is sown, and he pulls her into the workshop. With the sweep of his arm, he clears his desk, and lays her down atop it. His mouth is on her throat, her collarbone. He moves slowly down her body, caressing her through the silk skin of her pajamas, until he is at her waist. He slips her pajama bottoms down, and her underwear, and his molten mouth falls onto her sex. Wanda exhales sharply—_yes_—and runs her fingers through his hair as he goes to work loving her with his mouth. 

She can feel love pouring off of him. He is worshipping her like an idol. Wanda rides Tony’s tongue, and she rides the waves of pleasure blooming within her, and she drinks down the love like ambrosia.

She could get used to this.

***

In a couple days, Rhodey leaves. Wanda stays. They hole up in Tony’s bed. He orders in food for her, rare delicacies, things she’s never tried, things she’s never even heard of. He feeds her with his hands—offerings, tributes. They make love for hours, from dusk ’til dawn.

Tony pulls her close, his fingers combing lightly through her hair. 

“I’m going to build you something,” he whispers. 

“One of your suits?” she asks. “A weapon? There’s nothing I need.”

“I’m going to build you something,” he says again, stronger this time, and she looks at the determination in his face, peeks into his mind to see the wheels already turning. Her brave, bright, clever man.

“Just don’t let my bed get cold,” she says, and kisses him.

***

It takes her a few days to realize that Tony has stopped sleeping. When she’s awake, he is with her, always, and when she sleeps, he goes down to his workshop to build for her. She has seen the schematics in his head, but she doesn’t know how to read him. He’s excited, almost manic, but he won’t tell her what he’s building. It’s a surprise.

She wakes one night to find him missing. She pulls one of his shirts on, and pads barefoot down to his workshop. He is working with F.R.I.D.A.Y., manipulating three-dimensional blueprints, toying with the tiniest details of his project. Perfect. He wants it to be perfect.

She slips her arms around his neck, hugging him from behind.

“Come to bed,” she murmurs against his ear. “You need sleep.”

“I’m fine,” he says. “I need to work on this. I need to build for you.”

Wanda frowns. “Come to bed,” she says again. His eyes flash red for a moment, and he follows her, in a trance, back up the stairs. He tries to touch her, to kiss her, but he needs sleep. She doesn’t know how long he’s been without, and he’s only human.

“Sleep,” she says, and Tony sleeps.

***

Tony is missing the next time Wanda wakes. She frowns, and finds him in the workshop. On his workbench, beneath his tools, is a small staff—just her size—with a glowing jewel on its crown. He looks up at her, and smiles, but his eyes are bloodshot, and his cheeks are hollow.

“It’s almost finished,” he says.

“Tony, you should be sleeping.”

“I had to finish this for you.”

He drops his tools, stands back. Regards the staff for a moment. He takes a soft, clean rag and polishes the length of the staff, and then, with special care, the jewel at the top. He kneels, holding the staff out in front of him, holding it up for her.

Wanda frowns. She walks slowly into the room, looking at Tony more than the staff. He looks frail, but his hands are steady. She peeks into his brain and finds it quiet, and a little kernel of dread forms in her belly.

The closer she gets to the staff, the more brilliantly the jewel glows. The staff is beautiful, truly, another of Tony’s works of art. She rests her fingers on it, gently, and the jewel glows red, and she feels something in her bloodstream hum. It’s like the staff knows her. It’s like it’s a piece of her. 

Wanda takes the staff in her hands, gently setting the foot of it on the ground. Her hand fits six inches beneath the jewel. She feels power pulse through her veins. She thinks she knows the answer, but she asks the question, anyway.

“What does it do?” 

Tony is still on his knees. “Anything you want,” he says. “It will magnify your powers. Try it.”

Wanda points the staff, aiming the jewel at a coffee cup on Tony’s desk. She urges it to move, just levitate a few inches, but then the jewel glows bright, so bright, and the coffee cup rockets into the ceiling. It collides with a crash, and shards of porcelain rain down on them.

Tony doesn’t blink. “Do you like it?”

“Tony,” she says gently, trying to hide the raw fear note in her voice, “I think it’s too much …”

He shakes his head. “Not for you. Never for you.”

He looks at her with endless devotion. She knows if she asked him to, without using her powers at all, he would cut out his heart and offer it to her. The seed she sowed has wormed its way too deep, into the very core of him. He’s sick with it.

She remembers the first time she used her powers. There was something beautiful in it, but also something monstrous. She was afraid.

She feels that now. All of a sudden, everything crashes down on her, and she feels panicked looking at Tony’s face, knowing what he’s done, what he’d do, unsure of what he’ll do next.

“Tony, go to sleep,” she says.

But then, the staff is still in her hand. The jewel glows, and Tony collapses to the cement floor, motionless. Wanda drops the staff and runs to him, checks for a pulse. He’s still alive, but she cannot shake him awake. She doesn’t know how much her powers are amplified; he could sleep for a thousand years.

Wanda sobs, and she screams, and she feels the power pulse out of her body. She falls to her knees, hearing the crashing around her as the glass walls surrounding the workshop crumble to dust.  



End file.
